by R. A. Nelson
We’re cutting through a crowd of snacking shoppers when a raspy voice cuts into me.
“Well, cut off my legs and call me Shorty.”
Barb.
I gawk. She’s here with Vince. Mr. Mann. Alicia.
She rushes over and takes my arm, gives it a good wringing, then pulls me close for a hug that smells of Kools and peppermints.
I haven’t seen Mr. Mann in nearly a year. He looks fit; his hair is long again. If he held his head just right, he could touch his tongue to the locks.
He’s pushing a stroller.
“Hi,” I say. Nobody knows I’m saying it only to him. The moment feels like raising a flag that has no colors.
“Hello, Carolina,” Mr. Mann says.
Barb makes introductions all around. I do the same for Mom and Schuyler, minus Barb’s delighted braying. The baby thankfully gives us a focal point in the center of the awkwardness to park our attention.
“My goodness, how sweet!” Mom says. “And so big!”
A girl. I can’t help but look in the stroller. She’s plump. Her eyes are cobalt blue. On top of her head is a shiny half-pipe of hair, translucent as a fingernail. She smiles and coos. She doesn’t look like either one of them.
My eyes flick at Mr. Mann, hoping my expression passes for a coded message: Don’t worry. Everything’s okay. He’s poker-faced, stoic. Alicia’s face is even harder to read.
“So, you’re still nursing?” Mom says. “The first year is the most important. What did you name her?”
“Emily,” Alicia says. Mr. Mann glances at me, mouth closed, the muscles of his jaw working.
“Emily. Lovely. What a lovely name. You don’t hear old-fashioned names like that much anymore.”
“No. You don’t.”
So this little girl is the big, nasty secret. I’m surprised at how I feel toward her. I’m interested, an observer. But that’s all. There is no more. I don’t ache to take her in my arms, make her my own. Somehow she has nothing to do with me—and it hits me: of course she doesn’t. She isn’t mine. There is no connection there at all.
I meet his eyes again. There’s a piece of all this, everything that has happened, all that we felt between us, that will always be there. But more than that—there’s something settled there now. Something settled and good. I couldn’t call it happiness. Maybe he just seems content. Yeah, that’s it. Content.
He’d better be.
Like that, it’s over.
We’re moving away again. Mr. Mann is joining a swirl of shoppers lining up for teriyaki.
Will he look back?
I have to think about each step that carries me away from him. Don’t look. I won’t let myself look. I feel him pulling at my back. But it’s not so bad. Less of the fever, more of the dream.
He’s gone.
A woman in front of Sears is waving a pen, trying to get my attention. She wants to sign me up for a credit card.
“What? Oh. No, thank you. No.”
Why didn’t she approach Mom? How old do I look, anyhow? We walk past a rack of purple shoes.
“Isn’t this fun, darling?” Mom says.
I smile. “I’d rather be bitten by rat fleas infected with bubonic plague,” I whisper to Schuyler.
“Xenopsylla cheopsis and Yersinia pestis,” he says.
“Smart-ass.” I put my hand on his shoulder. It doesn’t feel quite so bony anymore. “One of these days you’re going to figure out it’s okay not to know something. It can even be a good thing.”
Schuyler frowns. “That’s a quarter.”
Today, for the first time ever, I put one in his hand.
